10 Questions for Oliver Stone

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, 57, has roused passions and courted controversy in films ranging from Platoon to JFK. After a five-year hiatus, he’s back with another project causing a stir, Looking for Fidel, a documentary about the Cuban dictator about to debut on HBO. TIME’s Jeffrey Ressner caught up with Stone at his editing room in Santa Monica, Calif.

YOU HAVEN’T MADE A FILM SINCE ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, IN 1999. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THE PAST FIVE YEARS?

I was exhausted. I had directed 12 films, one right after the other. I had reached the place where I did what I had set out to do–and more. So I just stopped. My movies were much criticized, and at a certain point you say things like, “What’s the point?” and you begin to wonder.

WHY A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT CASTRO?

He’s 77 years old, and he’s not going to be on the world stage much longer. Although Cuba is a small island, it has deeply affected the destiny of the U.S. He’s a complex guy, and that’s what interested me. I did a movie about Richard Nixon, and he was detested by many people. At the end of the day, whatever you think of the movie, Nixon comes across as more human. It’s the same thing with Castro.

AFTER YOU HAD FINISHED YOUR ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY, THERE WAS A CRACKDOWN ON CUBAN DISSIDENTS, AND HBO MADE YOU ADDRESS THE ISSUE. WERE YOU UPSET?

HBO asked me to go back to Cuba and re-balance things. Instead, I ended up making another movie. I understand what HBO did. I went back with the same crew, and Castro generously gave us another 30 hours in which we filmed a much more intense, more narrow discussion about the dissidents. I questioned him as hard as I possibly could. He responded clearly to the world’s condemnation, and you see a man who comes across to many as rigid and unbending.

YOUR NEXT MOVIE IS ABOUT ALEXANDER THE GREAT, SET IN ANCIENT TIMES. IT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE AN OLIVER STONE FILM.

I’ve done many types of films, and Alexander is the culmination of a journey that has taken me from genre to genre. There’s a grandiosity in Alexander, and I’ve always wanted to do an epic. When I was a kid, he was always my hero. When I was at N.Y.U. film school in the late ’60s, I fantasized about taking a crew back in time to get footage of him. Now, 35 years later, I got a chance to make that movie.

WILL YOU ADDRESS HIS RUMORED BISEXUALITY?

I treat it as part of the story, not the whole story. Society had different standards in the pre-Christian era. Relationships between men were quite acceptable until a certain age, when marriage occurred.

YOU’RE MR. CONSPIRACY. DO YOU THINK PRESIDENT BUSH KNEW ABOUT 9/11 BEFORE IT HAPPENED?

No, I don’t particularly think so. I think they were taken off guard. It’s probably somewhat as Richard Clarke has portrayed it.

YOU WENT TO YALE. SO DID GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN KERRY. ANY CHANCE FOR A CLASS REUNION?

I knew Kerry a little bit at Yale. We all looked up to him. He was head of the political union, and he was almost presidential material then. He looked like Abraham Lincoln.

YOU WROTE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S FIRST BIG ACTION FILM, CONAN THE BARBARIAN. HOW DO YOU THINK HE’S DOING AS GOVERNOR?

It’s irrelevant. He’s got a face that people like and forgive. Arnold is one of the great faces of the 20th and 21st centuries. He’s taken humanity to the cyborg stage, truly. Even at the time of Conan, we knew this man was a champion and nothing could stop his will.

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TODAY FOR A LIBERAL FILMMAKER TO FIND BACKING?

It’s impossible. There’s a decision, a consensus, that a certain kind of movie “will not work.” I’ll always feel that you can take the most boring subject and make it gripping. JFK was gripping, love it or hate it. People weren’t thinking about J.F.K. at that point; he was off the books. At worst, the movie opened up the debate.

WOULD YOU EVER DO A BIOPIC ABOUT THE BUSH FAMILY?

If I tried to do something like that, I would get so pounded before I even got a foot of film shot. I don’t know if there’s room enough on my back for the scars.